


The Greatest Game

by thisissarcasm



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-17
Updated: 2012-01-17
Packaged: 2017-10-29 17:11:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,068
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/322206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thisissarcasm/pseuds/thisissarcasm
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s been three months since the previous prank war turned Baker Street upside down. Sherlock is bored, bored, bored. And John decides the only way to amuse him is to let slip the dogs of war.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Greatest Game

**Author's Note:**

> The second and final installment in the prank war adventures (preceded by the Greater Game, which can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/316717).

As history would demonstrate, the Great Baker Street Conflict of 2011 was but the prelude to another conflict. It would, by its end, infiltrate the life of the long-suffering landlady; one overworked Detective Inspector Lestrade and a startled Molly Hooper would bear witness as well.

 

The initial conflict had been rather silly. A simple battle of the wits born out of retaliation and decided by the desire to avoid absolute humiliation at the hands of an older sibling.

 

Three months had passed in relative peace at 221B Baker Street before the Spray Heard Round the World was fired by a determined but somehow apprehensive John Watson, and by its end, the conflict had mushroomed into a war that left not one, but two men, acquiescing to defeat.

 

But first things first. The issue of the faucet and the rubber band.

 

*                                                                        *                                                                        *

 

“Bored.” There was that word again. That most dreaded of words that John Watson had come to understand in his time living with Sherlock Holmes had a very different meaning for him than it did for the rest of the human race.

 

Bored _people_ perused the Internet in search of pictures of cats with funny captions. Started random and angry wars of words with each other on forums. Sent pictures of their anatomy to others via chat sites. Bored _Sherlock_ started kitchen fires. Dissected human limbs on the kitchen table. Fired antagonistic shots into the walls if the firearms weren’t properly hidden.

 

And so on this particular afternoon, Sherlock announced that he was bored, and John realized that he had no way shy of committing an actual murder himself to avoid the potential devastation that would result from Sherlock’s restlessness.

  
“So watch some telly,” John called back from the kitchen with a shrug. He was currently trying to update his blog about a case, a rather confusing affair involving a dead woman, missing diamonds, and a racehorse, and Sherlock’s whines from the living area were growing increasingly distracting.

 

“Dull.”

 

“Very monosyllabic today, aren’t we?” John bit back a smile, unable to resist the urge to further Sherlock’s agitation. He knew that he would regret it before long – but for now, he could hear Sherlock huffing in resentment from the living room, and he turned his attention back to the computer screen as Sherlock padded rather dramatically into the kitchen.

 

“Two weeks without a case. Two. Bloody. Weeks.”

 

“I’m well aware. And in those two weeks you’ve shredded one of my jumpers, thrown up something experimental on the floor of your bedroom, and sat at the windowsill being grumpy,” John said, contently still typing away at his laptop.

 

“Problem?”

 

“Two syllables. I’m impressed.” John thought for a moment, and glanced at Sherlock. “And no, no problem. But I don’t need a grown man pulling the same stunts that a stray cat might in the flat.”

 

“This cat analogy is rather tired, John, honestly,” Sherlock said, rolling his eyes. “It was hardly clever to begin with.”

 

“And yet here you are,” John shot back.

 

“Fine,” Sherlock said, sighing heavily and quite dramatically. “I suppose I could go down to Bart’s and hope there’s a fresh cadaver in.”

 

“Go for it,” John told him. “Say hello to Molly.”

 

“Doubtful.”

 

Sherlock was gone within ten minutes, and John wondered if he had in fact headed to St. Bart’s or whether he had come up with some other way entirely to amuse himself: he wasn’t sure he wanted to know. And yet – an idea was coming to him. An idea so incredibly stupid, yet so incredibly funny, that he knew that even a great mind like Sherlock Holmes would not be able to resist.

 

He assumed somewhere deep down that Sherlock’s admission of defeat three months ago while thrashing about on the kitchen floor covered in butter still bothered the world’s only consulting detective, who normally would sooner be damned than admit his inferiority on any given subject.

 

And, John thought, whatever he found out and about in London to amuse himself would be short-lived. It was likely that within the hour he would return to the flat still bored but now carrying a pack of cigarettes in his pocket that he would place in the center of the coffee table and stare at until John seized them and threw them out.

 

With that in mind, John Watson made a decision.

 

He had fought in two wars now that someone else had started: one in the Afghani desert, and one right here in his own flat against the man he considered to be his best friend. And if it meant scurrying down Baker Street to a taxi that contained all of his clothes while he clung to his decency towel for dear life, then so be it. He could think of far worse results if Sherlock’s mind was not somehow occupied.

 

So, he nodded in silent affirmation to himself, and retrieved a rubber band from a nearby drawer.

 

It took only two minutes for John Watson to lay the foundations for the Second Great Baker Street Conflict.

 

*                                                                        *                                                                        *

 

Two hours and Sherlock returned to the flat smelling of disinfectant, and John guessed that he had in fact found his way to Bart’s after all. He tossed his keys absently onto the coffee table. Having finished his blog entry, John was reclining on the sofa, hoping for anything but “Antiques Roadshow” but coming up empty-handed.

 

“Anything interesting on at the morgue?” John asked. Sherlock had already shrugged off his coat and his scarf, and he stopped on his way into the kitchen.

 

“Hardly,” Sherlock said. “Scotland Yard is becoming annoyingly effective at having an eye for details.”

 

“What’s the world’s only consulting detective to do, then?” John asked. Sherlock’s silence said more than any answer could have, and John felt a pang of guilt at his own mocking tone as he realized that the prospect might actually be worrying Sherlock.

 

With that in mind, John added, “Something will turn up.”

 

“The criminal classes will get bored soon enough,” Sherlock said with a shrug. “Until then, my brain will continue to rot. Tea?”

 

It was rare for him to offer to make tea, and when he did, it was appreciated. Today, the gesture was not only appreciated, but the potential outcome of the offer was perhaps more exciting still.

 

“Yeah. Thanks.” John nodded and pulled himself up into a sitting position. “Let me help you with that.” It wasn’t the first time he had offered, and so Sherlock seemed completely unsurprised by his flat-mate’s kindness.

 

“We’re low on sugar,” Sherlock muttered.

 

“No matter,” John told him, producing the kettle from a nearby cupboard. “I’ll scrape the bloody container if I have to. Here, fill this up, and I’ll see how much sugar I can scrounge up. Should’ve gone to the shop yesterday.”

 

“Hm.” It was Sherlock’s default response, John had come to realize, when the man was listening, wanted to affirm that, and yet did not know what else to say. Sherlock took the kettle from John, and John waited with his back turned.

 

And three. Two. One. _Blastoff_.

 

There was the sudden clamoring of the kettle against the floor, and John felt a spray of water hit him across the back of his jumper. Sherlock stumbled backward, hitting the kitchen table, and John turned in time to see Sherlock Holmes – the most brilliant man he had ever known – wrestling with the kitchen faucet and the attached hose, already soaking wet from the blast created by an artfully placed rubber band around the nozzle of the hose.

 

Sherlock turned the water off and stood there for a moment, taking in what had just happened, and John watched as he glanced haplessly down at his newly soaked purple shirt, and then back at the faucet and hose, and then back down at his shirt again. There was water on the cupboards. Water on the floor. Water on Sherlock. And even friendly fire related water on John.

 

“Really, John?” Sherlock asked, turning to face his flat mate.

 

“Why do you automatically assume it was me?” John asked.

 

“I don’t assume, I deduce, and this is fairly simple,” Sherlock said. “Mrs. Hudson is out. We rarely if ever have visitors that aren’t clients. You have a rather annoying habit of flicking rubber bands when you’re bored. You handed me the kettle and were sure to have your back turned.”

 

“Very good,” John said, unable to hide his smile any longer. Sherlock was standing there looking much like a soggy and petulant overgrown child for the moment. “What else?”

 

Sherlock stared at him. “The question of ‘why’ springs to mind.”

 

“Bored,” John said simply, and without another word on the matter, he left a newly soggy Sherlock standing rather dumbfounded in the kitchen.

 

*                                                                        *                                                                        *

 

Around lunchtime the next day, John sat down the next day to check the hits on his blog. Sherlock had yet to emerge from his bedroom, as, when there wasn’t a case on, morning was apparently something that happened to _other_ people, not to him, and so mornings were fairly quiet in the flat. John was sometimes grateful that Sherlock was allergic to mornings.

 

It didn’t take very long for John to notice that something was amiss on the website. It was quite difficult to miss, in fact. The once plain green background of the blog was now a rather alarming shade of pink – no, not pink, John thought as he gaped at it – _magenta_ might be more accurate a name for the color. There was, in the place of his usual photographs that accompanied the blog, a series of pictures of kittens. One even wore a jumper. The cursor on the page now left a trail of pixilated glitter when it moved.

 

John gaped at the teenaged abomination that his blog had become, staring for far too long into the empty gaze of a bug-eyed, fluffy, white kitten that now occupied the space where his own picture had once been.

 

And then, there was the entry itself, and the comments that came with it. What had once been a well-done and thorough documentation of the case involving horses and diamonds had now become something resembling a shock value piece – each use of the word horse had been replaced with something far less innocuous- horrible words, words soldiers might utter to one another but never in front of flighty little old ladies or one’s sister.

 

John read the revised entry with growing horror. His documentation of the case now read as some sort of bizarre pornography or perhaps a case of Tourette’s. The bug-eyed kitten almost seemed to be mocking him from the side of the page.

 

And then, the comments.

 

There was, at the top of the page, one from Harry: _That cat in the jumper looks like you, and I owe Sherlock a pint for this._

 

And another from Mike Stamford: _Seems to be some trouble with your word processor, mate._

 

And a third from Molly Hooper: _Oh my. What if Mrs. Hudson sees? Are you feeling alright?_

And then, Lestrade: _God help you._

 

John stared down the list of comments with growing horror. Comment after comment about watching his language. About not saying such things as a professional. About kissing his mother with that mouth. About how one could possibly do that to a live animal and then sleep at night.

 

John raised a silent hand of horror to his mouth as he realized that the entry had been up for nearly twenty-four hours and had, from what he could tell, spread across the internet like wildfire. He could suddenly imagine e-mails with the link attached. All of Scotland Yard crowded around Lestrade’s computer, gaping and then laughing and then perhaps gaping again.

 

“ _Sherlock!_ ” There was no point in politeness or pretense. John bolted into an upright position, still clutching the laptop and reading over his blog entry that had seemingly been transformed from a thrilling case of mystery and intrigue into something that was quite possibly a paraphilia of some kind.

 

“Is everything alright, John? You’re shouting.” Sherlock entered the living room like a king entering his court, visibly pleased with himself.

 

“What did you do. What the _hell_ did you do?” John demanded.

 

“I did what any good soldier does in battle, Captain Watson. I retaliated,” Sherlock told him, yanking the laptop from John’s increasingly numb hands. His grin spread wider as his eyes scanned over the comments on the entry, and he closed the laptop and sat it aside. He sat down on top of the coffee table facing John, studying him closely.

 

“So you what, went back and changed all of the words to… _that_?” John asked.

 

“Oh, don’t be ridiculous,” Sherlock said, waving a dismissive hand. “You know that I don’t handle tedium well. I hardly lifted a finger. A few changes were necessary, of course, but with your typing speed well below anything remarkable and your inability to type without looking away from the keyboard, it was quite easy to make a few simple changes to Autocorrect – a terrible tool, by the way. You really should proofread your work, John, before unleashing it on the masses. I fear you may have scarred poor Molly for life.”

 

“You went into my computer. My password protected computer. And changed my Autocorrect settings to the filthiest words you could think of?” John asked.

 

“John, please,” Sherlock said. “Give me some credit. I can think of far worse words than those.”

 

“You’re not winning this one that easily, Sherlock,” John told him.

 

“Then what terms do you propose? Every game has its rules, or so I’m told,” Sherlock said.

 

“Don’t touch my blog. Or my laptop at all, for that matter. Stay away from my clothes, and under no circumstances are you to feed me any kind of mold or bacteria,” John said. “And your ground rules?”

 

“Mycroft is no longer your leverage,” Sherlock said. “Think for yourself this time. Earn the victory if you want it so badly. And for heaven’s sakes, no repeats. Wouldn’t want to be boring, now, would we?”

 

“Right then. I leave your brother out of this, and you leave my personal well-being intact,” John said. “Fair terms?”

 

Sherlock smiled. “Oh, I think so.”

 

It was a bit like making a deal with the Devil, John thought as Sherlock swished out of the room again a few moments later, still grinning that damned grin.

 

It was John’s move, after all. All Sherlock had to do was wait.

 

*                                                                        *                                                                        *

 

And he waited. Last time war had been declared, retaliation had been reasonably quick and John had been all too pleased with himself watching the world’s only consulting detective drool and slur his way through a crime scene while sniggering Scotland Yarders looked on. Now, the war had evolved into a subtle sort of psychological warfare between the two, as John remembered all too well the rather horrifying feeling of running out into the busy streets of London in nothing but a towel, and then the rather satisfying sound of Sherlock splatting on the kitchen floor covered in butter.

 

No doubt Sherlock remembered all of those things as well, and so John decided during the second stage of the battle that he would be more careful. Less smug. And far more clever and seize upon opportunities when he saw them. For this, he would have to recall his university days and the foolish things he and his friends had done to each other in the name of a laugh.

 

And so one day, perhaps two weeks after the pornographic kitten blog incident, when Sherlock breezed through the flat and declared that he was headed to Bart’s to gather some supplies for an experiment, John saw his opportunity.

 

He generally knew how long Sherlock would be gone and thus what his time frame was. He waited perhaps five minutes to give Sherlock time to hail a cab and make it several blocks, and then, he ducked downstairs to find Mrs. Hudson hard at work on something in the kitchen.

 

“Excuse me, Mrs. Hudson. Do you have any bullion cubes?” he asked. Mrs. Hudson was a landlady who had learned long ago not to ask too many questions, and so she handed the bullion with an uneasy smile and no questions asked.

 

For this portion of John’s plan to work, he needed two things to be on his side: Sherlock’s inattention to the familiar, and timing. He knew he could rely on the first of those things for the most part.

 

It took another few days before a case came up and the opportunity to present itself. It was a case involving a body found after weeks of being stashed away in an abandoned building. The smell of decomposition was hanging over both of them, but Sherlock, lost in his own world for the moment, seemed entirely oblivious to the smell upon returning to the flat. While Sherlock went immediately into the kitchen to begin work on something related to the case, John went for a showerand a quick prayer to any deity that would listen.

 

Newly showered and sitting in front of the television, John took a sip from his cup of tea, and he waited. Sherlock’s phone was deposited on the coffee table and the kitchen was notably empty, and John could hear the sound of the shower adjacent Sherlock’s bedroom. The first part of the plan was in place – now, all he needed was a miracle.

 

And on this particular evening, a miracle was exactly what the universe awarded the long-suffering blogger of Sherlock Holmes, for as John sat waiting and listening to the sounds of the shower and the television, Sherlock’s phone chimed.

 

Seeing it was from Lestrade, John could scarcely contain his glee. _Need you at the Yard. Hurry. –Lestrade_.

 

It took John no time to make it from the living room, through Sherlock’s bedroom, and to the bathroom door, and he pounded on it to get Sherlock’s attention.

 

“Lestrade phoned. Says he needs us at the Yard. It sounded urgent, so you might want to hurry,” John shouted through the closed door.

 

“Did he say what it was about?” Sherlock shouted back.

 

“No. He just said to hurry.” John tried his best not to sound overly excited about the prospect. Sherlock did not reply this time, and so John waited a moment longer, hoping for some kind of reaction, and he returned to the living room to find his coat.

 

Sherlock emerged fully dressed and newly showered brief minutes later, and John found himself wishing quite suddenly that he could photograph the look on Sherlock’s face as it hit him that something was off. It was an expression somewhere between shock, horror, amusement, and discomfort, all molded together into one virtually indescribable contortion of his features.

 

It was the look of a man who was, quite simply, realizing that he smelled like chicken bullion.

 

John thought of a thousand horrific things to keep him from cracking so much as a smile, and he waited for Sherlock to say something. Sherlock stared at John as though processing the facts at hand, and then, without a word, grabbed his phone from the coffee table, stuffed it into his pocket, and began putting on his coat as though it were an act of defiance.

 

The ride to Bart’s was an awkward one. Sherlock stared out the window and did not so much as cast a glance in John’s direction. John did much the same, chiefly because he had noticed that every few minutes the cab driver would take a whiff of the air and notice a strangely delicious scent in the air. He covered his mouth with his hand and willed himself not to laugh, and stared out at the London streets that surrounded them instead.

 

Another ten minutes and they were standing over the personal effects of the deceased man in a laboratory, far away from the smell of decomposition that had pervaded the derelict building where he had been found.

 

Lestrade was going on about identifying the victim and what had been found with the body, and Sherlock was in turn examining each piece in pointed silence. John simply stood back and waited. The air was thick with the smell not of chemicals or sterile laboratory, but of chicken.

 

Sherlock leaned over the table to reach for something, and it was at that moment that Molly’s expression changed ever so slightly. Her smile faded a bit and her eyes darted about as though she was at last realizing where the rather pungent chicken smell was emanating from, and her eyes fell to Sherlock with a mixture of surprise and momentary horror.

 

“So what do you think?” Lestrade asked finally.

 

“I think that perhaps your victim was running from someone – like someone he owed money to. He went inside the warehouse with the intention of hiding, and had a heart attack on the spot. I think you’ll find when you search his financials that he’s rather in debt because of a gambling problem. Someone intended to hunt him down and force him to collect, only to find him dead in his hiding place. Hence the footprints leading away from the body but no outwardly visible cause of death,” Sherlock said, putting a bagged receipt of some kind back down onto the table and turning to Lestrade.

 

“We’ll be able to confirm it once I’ve opened him up,” Molly said, her eyes not leaving Sherlock as she spoke. “But there’s no external trauma. And it makes sense.”

 

“I’ve already got Donovan on his financials,” Lestrade said, checking his phone. “Should be able to confirm the rest soon enough. Am I crazy, or does it smell like roasted chicken in here?”

 

John did not look at Sherlock when the question was asked, instead focusing on Lestrade. He took a whiff of the air, which absolutely did smell like chicken.

 

“No, I don’t think so,” John said, furrowing his brow in mock skepticism.

 

“You’re joking, right? I’ve smelled it ever since we got here. It smells exactly like roasted chicken,” Lestrade said, more insistently this time.

 

John was having a harder time deciding where to look, because he was starting to see cracks in Molly’s stoicism. The corners of her lips were tilting upward and threatening a smile. And so John focused on Sherlock, who rolled his eyes and turned to Lestrade.

 

“A man is dead and you’re worried about chicken?” he snapped.

 

“I haven’t had time for dinner,” Lestrade said with shrug.

 

By now, Molly had mustered some measure of courage, and John lost his ability to suppress a smile when Molly leaned in and sniffed Sherlock, her eyes going wide as her senses confirmed her suspicions. Sherlock seemed to notice the invasion of his space, and turned to Molly.

 

“And what the hell are you doing?”

 

“I um, well…” Molly glanced over Sherlock’s shoulder at John, who could do little more than smile and shrug as he watched Sherlock’s agitation grow. “See, I noticed it too. The chicken smell. Smells like my mum’s homemade chicken soup.”

 

John sniffed the air again, and his grin grew wider as he waved in Sherlock’s direction. “Now that you mention it…yeah. Yeah, I think I do smell it. Think it’s coming more from over there.”

 

If looks could kill, Sherlock might have murdered John right there in the lab. He glared at him and seemed completely oblivious when Lestrade moved a little closer to him as though to sniff him as well.

 

“Um, Sherlock, I…I think it’s you,” Molly said, trying not to smile.

 

“Don’t be ridiculous.” Sherlock’s frown grew more pronounced.

 

“My God, it _is_ you,” Lestrade said, staring at Sherlock in disbelief. “You smell like a rotisserie.”

 

Molly was unable to suppress a giggle. “Or like you bathed in chicken bullion.”

 

Sherlock stared at her, at a complete loss for words, and Molly clamped a hand over her mouth when she realized that she was completely and totally right. She stared at Sherlock and then over at John, who was suddenly fascinated by one of the ceiling tiles. Lestrade did the only thing he knew to do in a situation where a man who was prone to random insults had, for whatever reason, bathed in soup ingredients: he laughed.

 

“Oh, piss off, the both of you,” Sherlock snarled, and he brushed past them before stopping by John, who was still leaning against a nearby cabinet, staring upward the ceiling.

 

“They’re right, you know. You smell,” John confirmed, taking a big whiff.

 

“This isn’t over,” Sherlock murmured, his voice too low for Molly or Lestrade to hear.

 

“I beat you once, and I’m feeling good about this second round, too,” John told him, looking him in the eye and smiling. “Before I’m done, you’ll beg for mercy.”

 

Sherlock leaned in close, and stared at John in a way that might have been terrifying if he didn’t smell like dinner. “I never beg for mercy.”

 

And in a whirlwind of fabric and the delicious scent of fresh chicken soup, Sherlock stormed out of the lab, leaving Molly and Lestrade to laugh freely for the first time.

 

When John went to bed that night, Sherlock was locked away in his own bedroom, wailing away on the violin in such a way that it sounded like an angry cat screeching.

 

*                                                                        *                                                                        *

 

John woke from a dead sleep and realized instantly that something was wrong. The air around him felt cold and moist in a way that it normally didn’t, and his groggy mind wondered if he had perhaps left the window open. When he realized that it was winter and raining outside and that he hadn’t, panic set in.

 

He bolted upright and felt something wet and cold hit his face. When he attempted to suck in a breath to swear, he realized that whatever it was not only had managed to perforate his clothes, but was completely surrounding him.

 

He uttered a choked cry and reached out a blind hand in the dark, searching for the lamp on the bedside table through the darkness. When he finally found the switch in the darkness – and in the wet, muddled maze of _whatever it was_ , his eyes went wide with horror.

 

His entire bedroom – from one corner to the other, save the area nearest the door, was covered with an increasingly large mass of orange foam. It stretched several feet up from points of origin on the floor that John could no longer see because of the thickness of the foam, and he swatted away at it in order to shine more light around the room.

 

He shook the foam off of himself as best he could and climbed up into a standing position on the mattress, and stood there agape as he watched the orange mass of foam continue to expand and overtake what was left uncovered of his bedroom. It was beginning to climb bookshelves, threatening the closet doors, swallowing up the bedside table and the bed itself. He stood in horrified awe as he watched the room continue to fill, and his still partially sleeping mind was increasingly awake and putting the pieces together.

 

He climbed down off of the bed and felt whatever clean parts of him that were left grow cold and sticky, and he waded his way through the thick, dense mess that had consumed his entire bedroom floor as though he were trudging through a swamp. By the time he made it to the door he had stubbed his toe on something unseen, had fallen twice, and struggled with the door handle amidst the increasingly soapy and ambitious mass that consumed his sleeping quarters.

 

When he successfully opened the bedroom door, he staggered out covered in clumps of the foam. Sherlock was sitting cross-legged on the coffee table, phone at the ready, and John stared at him, dumbfounded.

 

“Smile, John!” Sherlock exclaimed as he snapped a picture with his phone.

 

John stared at Sherlock as though eyeing an alien for a moment. He glanced down at his pajamas, soaked and covered with foam, and then cast a glance back over his shoulder. The foam was now taking the opportunity to expand out of the newly opened door, spilling out onto the living room floor behind him, and he staggered forward.

 

“Don’t mind me, John. Carry on with…whatever it is you’re doing. I’ll make sure this one makes it to the website. It’s far more suitable than that awful cat in a jumper,” Sherlock said, rising from his impromptu seat on the coffee table.

 

“…I’m going to kill you,” John muttered, wiping a bit of foam away from his cheek and sloshing it onto the floor. “I’m a doctor, after all. I can make it look like an accident.”

 

“Your terms were clear. No ingestion of anything experimental or harmful. I was to stay away from your electronic devices, which, as you can clearly observe, I was thoughtful enough to remove from the room before the project began,” Sherlock said, nodding to the laptop and mobile phone resting in John’s place at his desk.

 

“How…what…” John wondered if somehow a bit of the foam had been absorbed into his brain, and he massaged his temples with cold, wet fingers.

 

“Spoken like a true titan of intellect,” Sherlock said. “Chemistry, plain and simple. A combination of hydrogen peroxide, saturated potassium iodide, and ordinary dish soap will create an exothermic release of oxygen, thereby resulting in a rather copious amount of brightly colored, rapidly expanding foam. It’s all rather elementary, really.”

 

“And you caused that to happen in my bedroom because I put a bullion cube in your shower head,” John said. “Yeah, I still think I might kill you.”

 

“Admit it, John. I’ve _beaten_ you. There’s nothing in the world you can think of that’s more hilarious than…well, this. You look ridiculous. And I shudder to think of the cleanup,” Sherlock said, sliding his phone back into his pocket.

 

“The clean…I am _not_ cleaning that up, Sherlock!” John shouted.

 

Sherlock shrugged. “You cleaned up the butter.”

 

“Because it was my mess! That I made! This was your doing, and you’re bloody well cleaning it up!” John was shouting now, and scarcely realized it. All he could think about was most of what he owned, drenched in a mixture of hydrogen peroxide, potassium iodide, and dish soap, and Sherlock grinning that damned grin while John stood there almost quite literally foaming at the mouth.

 

“Alright, John. I’ll clean up the foam,” Sherlock said, taking a deep breath. “But on one condition, and one condition alone.”

 

John already knew where this was going, and he felt his heart sink. “You want me to admit that you won.”

 

“In so many words, yes,” Sherlock said. “I think a blog post with the photo I just took accompanying the article would do quite nicely as a means of concession. A dignified way to accept defeat if ever there was one.”

 

John shook his head. “No. No, no, no. I’m not letting you sit and gloat over this for the next however many months, and I will not have you sit around on your ass while I clean the mess you made in my bloody room.”

 

“Fine. Have it your way – try not to strain your brain coming up with something more clever than that,” Sherlock taunted.

 

“You’re insufferable,” John said.

 

“You started it,” Sherlock shot back.

 

“Because you were squelching like a spoiled child and I knew this would shut you up!”

 

“Oh good lord.” A new voice entered, and both men froze. Sherlock’s eyes went wide, and John swore he saw a split second of fear in them, and over the other man’s shoulder, he could see Mrs. Hudson standing in the now open doorway, mouth gaping open, eyes as wide as saucers as she took in the scene. John could hear the foam still fizzing away behind him. Mrs. Hudson entered the room almost in slow motion, putting a silent hand to her mouth as she took in the sight of John covered in foam, and of the chaos of the bedroom behind him.

 

“I heard shouting,” she said when she turned back to them. “I thought something was wrong.”

 

“Oh, there’s something wrong, alright,” John said. “Sherlock did _that_ to my bedroom.”

 

“Are you telling on me?” Sherlock asked, disbelief in his voice. “You’re a grown man.”

 

“I’ll get even, Sherlock. You’ll wish you’d never been born by the time I’m done,” John told him. “I spent eighteen years living with Harriet Watson, and if this is the best you’ve got – if you think _this_ is going to decide the winner – then you are sadly-…”

 

“John Hamish Watson, sit down and be quiet!” Both men turned, incredulous, when they realized that it was Mrs. Hudson who had shouted at John. She fidgeted with the hem of her dressing gown, and then added as an afterthought, “Please?”

 

“Mrs. Hudson, I am so sorry,” John began. “I had no idea it would go this far.”

 

“Sit. Down,” Mrs. Hudson said, her voice lower now, slower.

 

John considered for a moment longer, and then took a hesitant seat on what was normally Sherlock’s side of the sofa. He could see Sherlock practically seething at the gesture, and he bit back a smile. Mrs. Hudson was watching him closely, and she took another look at the foam expanding into the living room and shook her head.

 

“Sherlock, sit down beside John,” Mrs. Hudson said, turning her attention now to Sherlock.

 

“Mrs. Hudson, I think you should know that-…”

 

“Save it for someone who doesn’t have bullet holes in her walls, my boy,” she said, pointing an accusing finger at Sherlock. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

 

“Or what, you’ll spank me?” Sherlock asked, rolling his eyes.

 

“You’re not too old for me to put across my knee. Now sit your bum down before I get very cross with you, Sherlock Holmes,” Mrs. Hudson told him.

 

Part of John wanted to laugh; the other, much wiser part, somehow knew better. Mrs. Hudson was a woman who tolerated all manners of insanity from her tenants, but tonight, she seemed to have at least temporarily reached the limit of her tolerance.

 

Sherlock considered for a moment longer, and then begrudgingly slid down next to John on the sofa.

 

“Which one of you is cleaning that up?” Mrs. Hudson asked, indicating the foam-filled bedroom. “And I’ll expect a correct answer on the first try, or it will be a very unpleasant night for everyone.”

 

John stared at her for a moment, and then followed her rather pointed gaze to Sherlock, who was sitting with his arms crossed, much like a pouting child.

 

“Sherlock?” It was more a warning than anything else.

 

Sherlock gave a defeated huff. “I am.”

 

“Good boy.” Mrs. Hudson smiled at him, and John felt a strange sense of relief at Sherlock’s words. Relief, at least, until Mrs. Hudson whirled on him. “And you, John Watson, you’re supposed to be the one I can depend on _not_ to pull childish pranks. Last time, you used up all the butter in the flat and could’ve gotten Sherlock killed.”

 

“But he started it!” The words were out of John’s mouth before he could fully realize what he was saying or how it sounded.

 

“Look at the both of you. Grown men, fighting like out of control schoolboys,” Mrs. Hudson said, shaking her head. “And for what? To see who can win a stupid bloody game? It’s four in the morning and I’m out of bed yelling at you both like children!”

 

“I’m sorry. I am so sorry,” John said. He could not recall a time when he felt more foolish, and Mrs. Hudson’s disapproving gaze made him want to crawl up under the sofa cushion and hide. Sherlock was not meeting her gaze at all.

 

“This ends here,” Mrs. Hudson said. “No more naked men running out of this house, no more using my cooking things to try to kill each other, and absolutely no more of…whatever that is coming out of the bedroom. Do you boys understand?”

 

Sherlock and John threw a defeated glance at each other, and then uttered in monotonous unison, “Yes, Mrs. Hudson.”

 

“And if I catch you at it again, you’ll be out in the cold, do you hear me?” she asked, raising an eyebrow for emphasis.

 

Together again: “Yes, Mrs. Hudson.”

 

“Alright. Now. There’s only one way to settle this properly. It’s what my mother would do when my sister and I had a spat. I’ll put the kettle on. You two sit right there, and you hold hands for the next half hour,” she said. John wondered – hoped – that she was joking, but her expression remained unchanged. “If you’re going to fight in the middle of the night over something silly like you’re children, then you’ll both deal with the consequences as though you’re children. My flat, my rules, boys.”

 

John cast a sideways glance to Sherlock, who was staring at Mrs. Hudson as though glaring at her might somehow make her explode if he tried hard enough. But now, John realized, was his final opportunity to take one last dig at the game.

 

Sherlock gave one last attempt at defiance. “You can’t put us in time out.”

 

“I’m your landlady, dear, and I can do what I want. And considering the filth you posted to poor John’s blog, you’re lucky I don’t wash your mouth out with soap while I’m at it,” Mrs. Hudson said. “Now suck it up, boys, and hold hands until I say you can let go.”

 

“Fair is fair, Sherlock,” John said. He took his left hand and scooped up a handful of the foam still clinging to his pajamas and, before Sherlock could move to stop him, grabbed hold of the consulting detective’s hand. In spite of everything, John smiled at the satisfying squish of the foam when he squeezed Sherlock’s hand for emphasis.

 

Five minutes, and Mrs. Hudson was in the kitchen making tea. Sherlock and John sat there in absolute silence, two grown men placed in time out by a fed-up landlady, holding hands as punishment for destruction of property and the shouting that followed it.

 

John considered, and said finally, “Alright, I admit that was pretty brilliant.”

 

In spite of everything, Sherlock smiled. “You’re a rather sound sleeper – I thought for sure the buckets I carried in would have disturbed you.”

 

“Buckets? You carried in buckets of that stuff?” John asked.

 

“Enough to expand enough to fill the room,” Sherlock said. He nodded to a piece of paper on the coffee table in front of them. “I calculated the exact volume needed to completely fill your bedroom, and proceeded accordingly.”

 

“Considering the circumstances, I’m almost inclined to admit that you won,” John said. Because in spite of everything, it was brilliant. And it was, he decided, as he thought back to Molly’s face when she realized that Sherlock had bathed in chicken bullion, completely worth the trouble and the cleanup.

 

“John, we’re two grown men sitting in time out together, holding hands,” Sherlock said, a small smile creeping onto his lips. “I’m inclined to think that our winner is in fact Mrs. Hudson.”

 

“And why is that exactly?” John asked.

 

Sherlock sighed, and rolled his eyes. “Because not only did she put us in time out, she’s been taking pictures with your phone while she waits for the kettle to boil. I’m fairly certain that by now she’s sent one to Mycroft and to your sister.”

 

“You can read me like a book!” Mrs. Hudson called from the kitchen, chuckling as she clanked about the kitchen.

 

John stared at Sherlock in a moment of abject horror: in mere moments, Harry’s phone would alert her to a new message, and there, she would find her brother – her respectable war veteran, medical degree holding brother – sitting in his pajamas, covered in orange foam, holding hands with Sherlock Holmes. And likewise Mycroft would receive a picture of his younger brother placed in time out like a child, holding hands with his flat mate who was inexplicably covered in foam.

 

“My God,” John muttered, shaking his head in disbelief. “That woman will outlive and outwit us all.”

 

It was at this moment that both men – one covered in foam, the other drenched in shame – realized that they were both about to admit defeat in a game of their own creation, and that pixilated proof was quickly making its way to the phones of the very people who could and would knock them both down a few pegs.

 

The great Sherlock Holmes, placed in time out and forced to hold hands with the person with whom he was quarreling; and Doctor John Watson, covered in foam and holding hands with the world’s only consulting detective.

 

In the end, all either of them could do was send the other a look of pity and sympathy, and laugh, so that’s exactly what they did.

 

*                                                                        *                                                                        *

 

It would be debatable in years to come who of anyone involved laughed the hardest, but sources might relate that the true victor – one Mrs. Hudson – would later laugh about it until she was red in the face.

 

While pure enjoyment was debatable, the outcomes of the Second Great Baker Street Conflict were these: firstly, that Sherlock Holmes and John Watson worked together to clean up the foaming mess in John’s bedroom.

 

Secondly, that Harriet Watson forwarded the picture message along to everyone she knew and that before long, the bulk of London had seen the photograph of the world’s only consulting detective and his dutiful blogger.

 

And then there was Mycroft Holmes, who upon receiving the picture message from John Watson’s phone promptly printed off copies of the photo for future blackmail and mockery.

 

But most importantly, there was the duo in question’s reaction to the photo. After agreeing to an actual, non-foam soaked truce regarding prank wars (they were, they realized, unsafe and occasionally childish), they commemorated said armistice by hanging a print of the incriminating photograph on the wall in the living room to serve as a reminder, where it became a staple of the flat much as the skull and the bullet holes in the wall. 


End file.
